You can find a history of the Leonids meteor showers here:

http://leonid.arc.nasa.gov/history.html

Although the writer quoted by the article says that "240,000 [meteors] must have been visible during the nine hours they continued to fall," other astronomers said that "[Careful scientific accounts indicate that] more than a billion shooting stars appeared over the United States and Canada alone" (Peter M. Millman, “The Falling of the Stars,” The Telescope, 7 [May–June, 1940], p. 57).

These discrepancies happen because the meteors were too numerous to be counted.

"The Leonids shower of 1833 ... saw as many as a hundred thousand meteors an hour — equal to an average of 30 meteors a second, Gyuk [Geza Gyuk, an astronomer at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago] said."
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/11/091116-leonids-meteor-shower-best-2009.html

"The Earth passed through the cloud in 1833 [from comet Tempel-Tuttle] and the resulting storm of meteors convinced many observers that the world was coming to an end, as meteors fell at the rate of snowflakes in a winter storm – perhaps 200,000 per hour."
http://www.suite101.com/content/the-leonid-meteor-shower-has-yielded-spectacular-shows-a293348

Although NASA’s Leonid showers history page says that the 1966 display "probably rivaled the historic showers of 1799 and 1833,” this could even be true of the number of meteors per second, but not in regard to extension and duration. Its peak lasted just 20 minutes, while in the 1833 storm "after midnight ... [the meteors] rapidly increased in number and brilliancy till 4 o’clock. The display was then in the highest degree magnificent and imposing, and continued without diminution till the dawn of the day." http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/1962JRASC..56..215S/0000220.000.html
So the 1833 storm's peak lasted at least 2 hours.

Also, the 1833 storm "pervaded nearly the whole of North America" (Denison Olmsted, Letters on Astronomy, Addressed to a Lady: in Which The Elements of the Science Are Familiarly Explained in Connexion With Its Literary History (1840 ed. ), pp. 348, 349).

"During the 4 hours which preceded dawn on Nov. 13, 1833, the skies were lit up by thousands of shooting stars every minute. Newspapers of that era reveal that almost no one was unaware of the shower. If they were not alerted by the cries of excited neighbors, they were usually awakened by flashes of light cast into normally dark bedrooms by the fireballs" (http://spacescience.spaceref.com/newhome/headlines/ast22jun99_2.htm). I'm not aware of any other meteor shower which was able to awake a whole country.

Besides, it did not just awake people physically, but also spiritually. "Indeed, the 1833 shower has been credited with contributing to the intense religious revivals that swept the United States in the 1830s, which permanently influenced the national character and spread new sects and denominations that are well established on the American scene today."
http://genealogytrails.com/ill/stars.htm

If these phenomena happen just before Christ's coming, they will be no signs, right? The purpose of the signs is to warn people of the need to prepare for Christ's coming. After people have been sealed or marked, there is no need for that.


Well, the Bible says that every eye will see Him, although we cannot know how this will happen. It doesn't say the same thing about the signs, though. It mentions wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes, famines, pestilences. Nobody expects this to occur on the whole earth at the same time.

Interesting, the nasa webpage reports on up to 5 events including 1833 which include major Leonid meteor showers. The Spacescience quote mentions that the 1833 shower took up to 4 hours, thereby equalling the 1799 shower according to the Humboldt quote found on the nasa page. The 902 and 1630 reports are to short to say much, though I would expect the original accounts to reveal how intense and how long they were. Astronomy/Astrology is after all the first of the sciences which was developed.

May I here point out that the sun going dark together with the moon is described in the SAME sentence as the stars falling. If "stars" falling 177 years ago happen just before Christ's coming, ... I do not think you can separate these astronomical signs in this way. Rumors of the wars on terror has efficiently reached all but the most remote and obscure corners of the world. Earthquakes hit, if not every nation, still citizens of every nation in this day of mobility. Pestilence does not recognise any borders and is every day moving towards the day when there is no longer a difference between rich and poor countries when our cures turn worthless. Pig flue comes to mind.

In fact, it lasted 9 hours. The reference to 4 hours may be to the most intense part of the shower.

"The meteors began to attract notice by their unusual frequency or brilliancy, from nine to twelve o’clock in the evening, were most striking in their appearance, from two to five, arrived at their maximum, in many places, about four o’clock, and continued till rendered invisible by the light of day." Denison Olmsted, “Observations on the Meteors of November 13th, 1833,” The American Journal of Science and Arts, 25 ([Jan.?] 1834), p. 363, 365, 366, 386, 393, 394.

Yes, the three don't seem to be separated by a very long interval. What I'm point out is, if these are going to occur as signs of Christ's coming, then they can't occur just before Christ's coming.
What Christ says in Matt. 24 is:

29 "Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
30 "Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
31 "And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
32 "Now learn this parable from the fig tree: When its branch has already become tender and puts forth leaves, you know that summer is near.
33 "So you also, when you see all these things, know that it is near——at the doors!"

Christ said these phenomena would occur "immediately after the tribulation of those days." If you interpret this tribulation as the final persecution of the church, then these things can't be signs, as I said, because "after" the tribulation, everybody will already have been marked or sealed. Besides, I doubt the persecution to the church will end before Christ's coming, so that there is an interval "after" it. But if you interpret this tribulation as the long centuries of persecution the church faced from after Christ's death until the end of the Dark Ages, then these phenomena had to occur immediately after it, and they constitute signs of Christ's coming.


But the news about the dark day and the fall of the stars reached other countries, too. It doesn't mean it had to occur in every country. There was darkness on the occasion of Christ's death, and since Christ was dying for the whole world, one would expect this darkness to involve the whole world, but this, of course, did not happen; it was a local phenomenon.
Wars, earthquakes, and famines are local. Some pestilences may spread from country to country, but not all. In recent years, for instance, Brazil has had an outbreak of yellow fever and some dengue fever epidemics, but this was circumscribed just to our territory.

Could their be a repeating of this just prior to the 2nd Coming?

Many believe that this will happen, LaRondelle being one of these.

However, this doesn't seem correct to me, owing to the reason presented above. Jesus said:

Matthew 24:29 "Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken"

Only Christ's coming will put an end to the final persecution of the Church. So how could these signs occur "after" the tribulation? Therefore, the tribulation mentioned by Christ must be the persecution of the Church during the Dark Ages.

No definition of the Dark Ages I am aware of have them ending around 1833. Usually the European Dark Ages are considered to have ended by the mid to late 14th century at the commencement of the Renaissance.
Wikipedia did provide a Dark Ages with a reasonable fit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_ages_of_Cambodia
Though why the end of Cambodias Dark Ages would be commemorated in prophecy remains to be made clear.

The Dark Ages seems to have been the most intense period of religious persecution.
I'm referring to the persecution described in Revelation, during which the church is referred to as being "in the wilderness:"

Rev. 12
13 And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had borne the male child.
14 But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time.

This is the same persecution carried out by the leopardlike beast:

Rev. 13
5 And the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months;
6 it opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling, that is, those who dwell in heaven.
7 Also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them.

This persecution is also described in Daniel, as being carried out by the little horn:

Dan. 7
25 He shall speak words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and shall think to change the times and the law; and they shall be given into his hand for a time, two times, and half a time.

The persecution begun just after Christ's ascension, and which would extend a little beyond the 1260 days, would have its climax during this period.